Toward a shared vision for climate‐informed resource stewardship

Climate‐change adaptation planning processes and tools are increasing in number and evolving rapidly. During times of innovation and proliferation, a potential danger is incoherence, when well‐intended contributions can overwhelm, create confusion, or mask complementarities. A shared vision is needed to avoid duplication, reduce misunderstandings, and facilitate work across jurisdictions to steward resources undergoing profound changes. Such a vision would document fundamental tools and approaches while allowing flexibility to match highly varied management contexts and organizational missions. Fortunately, the preconditions for coherence exist. Here, we illustrate how climate‐change adaptation tools—including scenario planning, conceptual frameworks, structured decision making, and impact‐evaluation methods—can be (and are) used in tandem to support adaptation planning that accounts for uncertainty, considers a broad range of strategies and actions, makes transparent and robust choices, evaluates outcomes, and is flexible and responsive to the decision context.